Brazil's Economy Shrinks, So Does Consumer Confidence
Written by Cristiane Ribeiro
Wednesday, 30 November 2005
Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) went down in the third quarter of this year for the first time since the first quarter of 2003.
The data released today by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show that the sum of goods and services produced in the country dropped 1.2% in the period between July and September in comparison with the second quarter of the year.
Nevertheless, when compared with the third quarter of 2004, the third-quarter results represent a 1% improvement.
From January to September, the country's economy grew 2.6% in relation to the same period last year.
The IBGE informs that the third-quarter 2005 results, in comparison to the previous quarter, evidence the impact of lackluster performances in agriculture, which registered a 3.4% decline, and industry, which was off 1.2%. The service sector held steady.
Less Confident Consumer
The latest survey of Consumer Confidence Brazil's Getúlio Vargas Foundation found that the index fell from 104.2 in October to 102 in November.
There was also a drop in the Expectations index, going from 106.1 in October to 104.1 in November.
However, when asked to evaluate the economic situation, consumers had a better opinion of it in the latest poll than in October.
In October, 10.6% of those interviewed said the economic situation was good; in November that rose to 11.1%. And in October, 47.7% of those interviewed said the situation was bad; while in November only 46.5% said it was bad.
The survey interviewed 1,969 people in Brazil's main cities between November 1st and 22.
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.